Davison Finds Answers During Fast Start
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
September 11, 2019
It would have made sense if this were a transition year for Davison football.
The Cardinals have just six seniors on this season’s team, four returning starters on defense and five on offense – including two who were playing different positions last fall – and graduated 2018 Flint Area Player of the Year, quarterback Cannon Hall.
As expected, after two games, Davison is … possibly better than a year ago?
The Cardinals, who finished 7-3 last season, are tied at No. 6 in the latest Associated Press Division 1 poll, sitting at 2-0 with big wins against Fenton (54-27) and Bay City Western (69-13). And nobody in the locker room is surprised by it.
“I feel like all of the work we put in the offseason as a group, we kind of expected this outcome,” junior quarterback Brendan Sullivan said. “The mindset that we have at Davison is that no one is going to outwork us. And that work we put in during the offseason gave us confidence coming into the season.”
Sullivan is a major reason for the Cardinals’ early-season success. The quarterback-turned-receiver-turned-quarterback has thrown for 547 yards and nine touchdowns over two weeks. In Week 2, Sullivan threw for 283 yards and five touchdowns – all during the first half.
While those outside the program wondered how the production of Hall would be replaced, the people inside were confident Sullivan was up to the job.
“In 14 years of coaching, he’s the best quarterback I’ve ever been around,” Davison coach Jake Weingartz said. “Last year, he started at wideout for us, and he was all-league at that. This year, he’s worked very hard in the offseason. We knew how good he was, and obviously other people probably did not. He’s not just a thrower, either. We haven’t had to run him a lot, but in Week 1, he carried it for 80 yards and a touchdown.”
Weingartz believes Sullivan is a Power 5 conference Division I college prospect, and notes that his current lack of offers comes from the fact he hadn’t been a varsity starter at the position until this season. The 6-foot-4, 190-pounder does hold a basketball offer from Saginaw Valley State.
“It’s crazy to see how he doesn’t have any offers,” said Davison senior linebacker Logan Pasko, who is committed to Youngstown State. “He brings the passing aspect to the offense. Cannon was a good thrower, but (Sullivan) really brings accuracy and a deep threat. If he was a Madden player, he’d be 99 overall.”
Sullivan’s favorite target this season has been Latrell Fordham, who has caught 10 passes for 248 yards and five touchdowns to lead the team. Sullivan has spread it out, though, as he’s completed passes to seven receivers. A.J. Terry (two), Gabe Smith and Payton Pizzala have each caught a touchdown pass.
“I think it’s very hard to defend us,” Sullivan said. “I can pick which receiver to throw to every play, and the running backs we have are just studs. We’re hard to defend at every level. It makes it easier when you have receivers you can trust and a running back you can trust.”
The Cardinals are averaging 230.5 yards per game on the ground, led by Caleb Smith (145 yards, two TDs) and Carter Cryderman (121 yards, 1 TD). They’re running behind a completely retooled offensive line, which was another major question mark coming into the season that appears to have been answered.
Junior Lucas Edgar is the only returning starter on the line, and he moved from tackle to left guard. He’s joined up front by sophomore Isaac Norton, junior CJ Brady, senior Cam Hunt and junior Yousef Dukuly. The group still has work to do, but has impressed thus far.
“Obviously, they’re all really young, and we have a lot to improve on, which is exciting for our staff to know that group has only played two games together,” Weingartz said. “Essentially, they’ve really only played two halves of football.”
With just six seniors, the other lingering question about the Cardinals would have been leadership, but that’s been handled as well.
“(The junior class has) been pretty strong, but all credit to those six seniors leading that class and leading us to where we are right now,” Sullivan said.
Pasco, who has paced the defense with 17 tackles through two weeks, said the team doesn’t need much leadership, because “it’s just there.” He’s not afraid to speak up when he has to, though.
“For me and Caleb Smith, we’ve been waiting for this moment since our sophomore year,” Pasco said. “Now that it’s here, it feels like the easiest thing. Whenever something needs to be said, we know that someone is going to step up and say it.”
The Cardinals showed their maturity right away, dominating a veteran-laden Fenton team that has high hopes of its own this season, and doing so with a weather delay that forced the game to be played over the course of two days.
“It was a big game,” Weingartz said. “For our guys to come out and play the way they did, and be mature about it and play the way they did over the course of two days was great to see.”
More big tests await, as the Cardinals’ Saginaw Valley League Blue schedule features three playoff teams from a year ago – Flint Powers Catholic, Grand Blanc and Lapeer. Davison also has nonconference matchups against Grand Ledge and two-time reigning Division 2 champion Warren De La Salle Collegiate.
“I think we’re going to be prepared,” Pasco said. “We stay ready so we don’t have to get ready. All of us know what we have to do and what our jobs are. We don’t want any pushovers on our schedule. We want to go out of our comfort zone and really show the state what we have to offer.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Davison defenders bring down a Fenton ball carrier during their Week 1 win over the Tigers. (Middle) Cardinals quarterback Brendan Sullivan locks on to his target. (Photos by Terry Lyons.)
Lumen Repeat 'Club' Inducts Newest Class
November 24, 2017
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
DETROIT – The challenge came one more time over text Thursday night, from a pair of assistant coaches who had something their players desperately wanted.
Tony Panici and Tyler Aldridge were part of Jackson Lumen Christi’s repeat Division 5 champions in 2003 and 2004, and they had one question for today’s Titans: “Do you have what it takes to join the back-to-back club?”
“That really stuck with us,” Lumen Christi junior linebacker Nick Thomas said. “And I think it gave us that little edge to be able to come out and leave everything on the field, and just join that club.”
Panici and Aldridge – who also were part of the 2005 runner-up team – sent along photos of their championship rings as well. And now the program will need to mint another 80 or so more.
Indeed the Titans won their 10th championship Friday at Ford Field, for the second straight season in Division 6, completing their first repeat since Panici and Aldridge’s sophomore and junior years more than a decade ago. And Lumen Christi did it by holding off arguably the state’s most successful program of the last decade – five-time champion Ithaca – by holding on for a 40-34 win.
The Titans led by 20 midway through the fourth quarter before the Yellowjackets pulled to within six with 2:27 to play. Lumen Christi (12-1) was able to run off those final minutes but needed every last yard – securing the victory by getting two on a 4-and-1 dive by senior Kyle Minder with under a minute to play.
It was a symbolic way to end the final rally. The Yellowjackets (12-1) have won their five titles over the last eight seasons with offenses led by dynamic dual-threat quarterbacks, and made this run led by senior signal-caller Joey Bentley – who ended the fall with 2,144 yards and 31 touchdowns passing and 1,656 yards and 27 scores rushing.
Lumen Christi’s attack is far more old school, a grind-it-out style that this season headlined senior Sebastion Toland with Minder mostly blocking in front of him and behind a powerful offensive line. The Titans didn’t throw a pass during the second half Friday, aside from a two-point conversion try, mostly because they were able to follow up Ithaca’s defensive stops with long runs – Minder ripped off scoring sprints of four, 43 and 63 yards over the final two quarters, and Toland had an 80-yarder to make the lead 19 points just more than a minute into the fourth.
“The offensive line really came off the ball in the second half,” said longtime Lumen Christi coach Herb Brogan, who finished his 38th season running the program. “We felt all year long that offensive line was the strength of our team, and we’ve got some pretty good people to run behind them. I really thought they asserted themselves in the second half and took control of the line of scrimmage.”
The Titans ran for 514 yards on 67 carries, averaging 7.7 yards per attempt. The carries were the second most by one team in an MHSAA championship game.
Toland finished with 244 yards on 33 carries, and Minder had 206 on 23 attempts. Both made the MHSAA record book list for rushing yards in a Final, Toland’s total tying for seventh highest. He had 176 of those yards during the second half. Thomas also scored his team’s first touchdown on a 72-yard reverse.
“They’re a fantastic team offensively, and we knew that. Our challenge was getting off the field,” Ithaca coach Terry Hessbrook said.
“Our defense is fast, but obviously we’re not very big. They asked me at halftime on TV what (Lumen’s) adjustment was going to be. And I said I expected a lot more power running game from them in the second half, and unfortunately that’s exactly what we got.”
A 51-yard touchdown run by Bentley gave Ithaca a 13-8 lead it carried into halftime. Lumen Christi swung the score 24 points to take a 31-12 advantage into the fourth quarter, but the Yellowjackets remained dangerous. Three of Bentley’s four touchdown passes came over the final 9:36.
He finished 11 of 21 passing for 240 yards and those four scores, and ran for 89 yards and one touchdown. Senior Adam Culp caught five passes for 70 yards and two of those scores.
“I’m glad the clock ran out when it did,” said Brogan, also the fifth winningest coach in MHSAA history with a 343-83 record. “They’re really explosive.”
Senior linebacker Ethan McCormick led Ithaca with 15 tackles, while senior nose guard Nathan Bellinger had 11 and senior linebacker Zach Hessbrook had 10.
The Yellowjackets have won 118 of their last 123 games.
“All I can say is this: When you coach a team, all you ask from them is that they play as hard as they can possibly play,” Terry Hessbrook said. “My kids do that. They do that for me, for my coaching staff.
“I told those guys at halftime, Jackson Lumen Christi has never a team like Ithaca High School, because we have no quitters. These kids, I’m so proud of them for it.”
Minder and Thomas both had six tackles to pace the Titans.
The MHSAA Playoffs are sponsored by the Michigan Army National Guard.
PHOTOS: (Top) Lumen Christi’s Sebastion Toland works to break away from a tackler during the Titans’ Division 6 Final win Friday. (Middle) From left: Cameron White, Joe Barrett, Luke Stanton and Hunter Richmond celebrate with the championship trophy.